Indonesia was seriously affected by the earthquake and tsunami created by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on 26 December 2004, swamping the northern and western coastal areas of Sumatra, and the smaller outlying islands off Sumatra. Nearly all the casualties and damage took place within the province of Aceh.
According to the country's National Disaster Relief Coordination Agency, 126,915 people are dead and 37,063 are missing [1]. In addition, the UN estimates that 655,000 people are homeless and sheltering in scattered refugee camps across the province. [2]
Bureaucratic non-coordination is such that as of January 23, 2005 the Health Ministry reported 173,981 dead while the Social Affairs Ministry registered only 114,978.[3]. On 25 January Health Minister Fadilah Supari updated the estimated death total to 220,000. (BBC)
Aftermath
For a map of the affected areas in Sumatra see this BBC map [4]
Northern Sumatra took damage from the earthquake itself as well as the tsunami. However, most of the damage was the result of the tsunami that struck the coastal regions of the Aceh and to a much lesser extent the North Sumatra provinces. The west coast of Aceh was about 100 km (60 mi) from the epicentre and is took very heavy damage as far South as Tapatkuan . Ten metre tall waves passed the northern tip of the island to race south down the Straits of Malacca and strike along the northeast coast as far east as Lhokseumawe .
Reports from those that have flown over the Aceh coast have reported a a virtually destroyed coastline. In many towns and villages concrete pads are all that is left of substantial structures, while scattered corrugated iron roofs crumpled like paper are the only evidence of flimsier houses. A few intact mosques rise eerily from wasteland. "You can't really explain. There used to be towns and cities there. All the people once had homes, lives," said Petty Officer 1st Class Scott Wickland from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. "Now there is nothing." [5]
Relief efforts and communication along the western coastline are complicated, because the one road along the coast has been disrupted due to the destruction of dozens of bridges and much of the road being washed away or blocked by mud. The western districts of Aceh, lying nearest the epicentre of the magnitude-9 earthquake that caused the tsunami, is a "roadless" area, according to UN Emergency Coordinator Jan Egeland. "The lack of access by road is a key problem aid agencies face in the northern and western parts of Aceh," Chris Lom, a spokesman in the region for the International Organisation for Migration, said on 7 January. A number of towns on the west coast are therefore cut off from road from any airport or port. Relief efforts therefore require the use of helicopter or boat. In the town of Meulaboh in Aceh, for instance, where thousands are waiting for aid, 99 percent of the bridges are gone and 60 percent of asphalt roads are awash with mud according to Lom. "An escalation in the number of deaths is almost a certainty," according to William Hyde, Jakarta-based emergency relief coordinator for the International Organisation of Migration. "So much of the coastline couldn't be accessed." [6]
Government officials in Indonesia, acknowledge they have been forced to make crude estimates of the death toll, because the scale of the devastatation and the break down of civil governance. They have been forced to use such measures as counting the number of bodies in one mass grave and multiplying that by the number of such plots. In other cases, they estimated the population of a village, counted the survivors and assumed the rest are dead. ([7]) The scale of the breakdown of civil governance is shown by the fact that after a week 1400 policeman are missing in Aceh, having not reported in. The entire provincial government of Aceh, which had its capital at Banda Aceh has reportedly been wiped out by the deaths of the governor, provincial legislators, and many government workers. [8]
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan described the devastation in the Indonesian province of Aceh is the worst he has ever seen, after touring the region by helicopter on Friday 7 January. [9]
Banda Aceh
More than 30,000 people have been confirmed killed in the capital of Banda Aceh alone, the government said earlier this week. [10]. Over one thousand bodies found on the streets on the provincial capital of Banda Aceh were placed in mass graves without waiting for identification as officials quickly try to keep the sanitation situation from worsening.
Leupung
Leupung -- sometimes spelt "Leupueng", is a town in the district (Kabupaten /Kota) of Aceh Besar, close to the city of Banda Aceh, the capital of the special territory of Aceh. The town has been completely obliterated by the tsunami resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Media reports state that the tsunami was directed by seaside limestone cliffs towards the town of Leupung, which had a population of ten thousand. According to reports nothing vertical and square-edged is left, and the estimated number of survivors is between two and seven hundred. [11]
Gleebruk
Gleebruk (SatPixs) is a village in the district (Kabupaten /Kota) of Aceh Besar just to the southwest of Banda Aceh, the capital of the special territory of Aceh on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was completly destroyed by the tsunami resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
Teunom
Teunom, a town in the Aceh Barat (West Aceh) district of the special territory (daerah istimewa) of Aceh on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, with a population of about 18,000, was reported to been damaged so severely that it "vanished completely leaving only scattered shards of concrete" as a result of the tsunami produced by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Officials estimate 8000 of the 18000 population are dead. [12]
Calang
Calang was badly hit by the tsunami. It was the district capital, but little now remains. Only about 30 per cent of the townspeople have survived. Estimates of the population of Calang largely fall between 9,000 and 12,000. The trail of destruction left by the tsunami extends two kilometers inland from the coast. Whole hills have been washed away.
Welfare Minister Alwi Shihab is quoted as saying that it is likely the town of Calang, north of Meulaboh, will be relocated inland. [13]
Meulaboh
The town of Meulaboh, which had a population of 120,000 before the tsunami, was struck by a series of seven waves, killing an estimated 40,000 and destroying most parts of the city, according to relief organisers and local government officials. [14] Approximately 50,000 people lost their homes in the region, local government workers seem to be overwhelmed and there is little sign of coordination with regional authorities. About 5000 have taken refuge at Meulaboh College but conditions there are getting steadily worse. An Indonesian navy ship bringing aid supplies to Meulaboh was forced to turn away after it was unable to dock because the port facilities were destroyed. The small airport nearby has been reopened and small aircraft can now land there. ([15]). [16]
Western islands
Government officials were initially very concerned over the lack of reports from the many small islands dotting the western coast of Sumatra, such as the islands of Simeulue and Nias, among the poorest areas in Indonesia. However, casualties seem to be comparitively light in comparison to the mainland of Aceh.
Simeulue island
Simeulue was not the tragedy many government officials feared despite its proximity to the quake epicentre. Only five of the 70,000 villagers on Simeulue were killed, all of them in the earthquake that struck at 7.55am last Sunday. Although 90% of the buildings along its coast have been destroyed, nobody perished in the five-metre-high walls of water that followed. Local traditions seem to have saved them. Mayor Darmili said villagers on the island were used to earthquakes and tsunamis. A big earthquake last struck in 2002. "Thousands of our people were killed by a tsunami in 1907 and we have many earthquakes here," he said. "Our ancestors have a saying - if there is an earthquake run for your life." [17]
Nias island
On Nias island official accounts gave the number of dead at 122 (source: Media Indonesia Online via the Ministry of Health), while various unconfirmed sources (mostly from phone calls by relatives living in Jakarta) report death tolls of over 600; others say the number is more likely to go well over 1000. Reports have surfaced that the small islets off the coast of Nias island in the Sirombu district are still relatively intact ([18]), but high waves still prevent locals from attempting to reach the islands (niasisland.com). Confirmation and communications to the islands are further hampered by damage to telecommunication infrastructures, where phone lines are broken and radio networks have been said to be down due to bad weather. This infrastructure damage has severely hampered the distribution of aid.
Complications owing to Aceh insurgency
An accurate picture of the damage was made difficult due to the insurgency of the separatist Free Aceh Movement, which means that there were relatively few journalists, government offices, or aid workers in northern Sumatra prior to the earthquake. On 27 December the government lifted the 18-month-old ban prohibiting foreign journalists and aid workers from travelling to Aceh. Also on 27 December a spokesperson for the Free Aceh Movement declared a ceasefire so humanitarian aid could reach survivors, and so as not to complicate the already devastating situation, however some have expressed doubt that there will be good-faith cooperation between the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian military. Despite losing many soldiers to the tsunami, the military retains a massive presence in the region.
On 6 January the Indonesian military reported that soldiers had been attacked while on humanitarian missions. The insurgents in turn claim that the Indonesian military is taking advantage of the situation. If the clashes continue, it would pose a problem for humanitarian organisations operating outside of the cities near rebel strongholds. Travel restrictions may be put on foreigners again if the conflict restarts. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned Indonesia not to use any of the military aid being provided for relief efforts for counterinsurgency efforts. [19]
Relief Efforts
Although Indonesia was the first and worst hit of countries in the region, it is the last to begin receiving relief aid. Two large aftershocks on Wednesday caused many residents, traumatised by their experience, to flee from the coast. Looting of food has been reported throughout this northmost province of Sumatra as aid has proved slow to arrive.
Fifteen thousand troops, who were in the region to fight the insurgency, have been dispatched to render assistance and to search for survivors. However, many soldiers and their families were themselves killed. Three days of national mourning have been declared. The Indonesian government has declared the local provincial Acehnese government as totally crippled and have declared that all administrative control will be handled directly from Jakarta.
The unmanageably high number of corpses strewn all over the cities and countrysides, limited resources and time for identifying bodies, and the very real threat of cholera, diphtheria and other diseases have prompted emergency workers to create makeshift mass graves. One of the most urgently required supplies now are body bags ([20]).
There are significant bottlenecks created by lack of infrastructure and red tape. The United Nation's Children's Fund reported on Thursday that aid for 200,000 people, including medical supplies, soap and tarpaulin, was being held at Jakarta for a day to clear customs. The US consul in Medan in southern Sumatra reported that aid there was piling up at the airports of Medan and Banda Aceh because there were not enough trucks to transport it. 11 days after the disaster and few foreign relief workers or supplies have reached the local people in local centres such as Meulaboh, Aceh.
The most pressing concerns at the moment is the inability to distribute sufficient aid due to a lack of accessible roads and a shortage of available helicopters ([21]). What little aid has reached the remote regions of Aceh province is trickling in primarily by boat and air.
While the airfield outside Banda Aceh is functioning, most of the other small gravel airfields were damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. In the first days only two airfields were functioning in the province. As most of the few roads in the region were on the coast because of the rugged interior, much of the transport infrastructure was damaged or destroyed. Helicopters and Indonesian navy ships off the coast supplied a small amount of aid.
At 2.30 am on 4 January 2005 at Banda Aceh airport a heavy cargo plane as it landed hit a water buffalo which had strayed onto the runway. The left side of the plane's undercarriage collapsed, making the plane un-movable blocking the runway for a big part of that day, except for helicopters, until some specialists came from Singapore to put a temporary support under that part of the plane, and men moved the plane off the runway.
Four planes carrying aid were sent by Australia and one from the US carrying an evaluation team. An Australian ship carrying helicopters set sail, but will not reach Sumatra until 14 January 2005. A US Navy aircraft carrier battle group centred on USS Abraham Lincoln, dispatched to assist Aceh, has begun ferrying small amounts of supplies to the remants of small coastal communities. The US relief operation is based at the Thai base of Utapao .
In Aceh some elephants from a wildlife park were used to move debris. (Elephants were also used in Thailand).
External links
Last updated: 06-02-2005 16:39:50
Last updated: 09-12-2005 02:39:13
